


Does He Run On Batteries?

by flibblesd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Castiel, Asexual Sam Winchester, Cyborgs, Gen, Lawyer Sam Winchester, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Protective Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibblesd/pseuds/flibblesd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mechanic Dean gets his hands on some expensive tech in the form of a full fledged android. He knows it’ll be perfect to tear down and sell so they can finally afford the hardware Sam desperately needs. However, when it’s splayed out on his worktable he can’t help but notice something odd.</p>
<p>“Does it- does it look like its breathing?”</p>
<p>AI software CAS occupies a human body and takes a liking to Sam. Dean is displeased with basically every turn of these events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Does He Run On Batteries?

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Asexual SPN MiniBang](http://acespnminibang.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr! I wanna thank my artist [cora](http://cptcarol.tumblr.com/) first and foremost for being so understanding when i'm a complete flake and hard to communicate with in general AND for making ABSOLUTELY STUNNING art for this little fic. Please please head over to her tumblr and leave her lots of compliments, she deserves it <3 thanks also to my lovely beta megan for reading through this whole thing so last minute, you're a lifesaver ilu

Two CPUs, three comm screens, one android, and four toasters. It was hardly a haul, especially for a day’s work. Dean tapped his soldering rod against the edge of his metal workbench, chewing his cheek and trying to add up the numbers.

“What’s got your face all screwed in?” Jo cocked an eyebrow at him from across the table where she was fiddling with one of the aforementioned toasters.

“Silence, trainee. It’s not your place to question your superior,” Dean rolled off easily enough, smirk in place. Jo eyeballed him, never faltering in her work as she unscrewed the paneling of the toaster and placed it to the side.

“Please, at the rate you’re going Trainee’s gonna finish all Superior’s work for him,” Jo retorted, breaking away to strip the thing down to the coils inside. “I’m not an idiot, what’s up?”

Dean watched her work, thin fingers moving deftly across the machine’s intestines as they searched out the source of the problem. He debated if confiding in her was the best idea, especially knowing that she would tell her mom in a heartbeat and then he’d be shit outta luck. Ellen would drop her last thousand on them if they needed it and Dean didn’t want that.

“It’s nothing I can’t figure out,” he finally said, knowing the pause was too long for Jo to just leave it at that. They’d known each other since she was just a high school kid with a crush. Now that she was fresh out of college and still completely in love with mechanics (not as much Dean), she was practically one of his closest friends. Not that Dean had many of those anyway. She at least knew him well enough to know when he was bullshitting, which was a really annoying talent for people to have in Dean’s opinion.

“Sure, that why you’ve been soldering that wire to the panel for the last hour? Because you got it ‘figured out?’”

The finger quotes were just unnecessary. He dropped the soldering rod to the table with a sigh and picked up his pliers to tear the wire free. Sure, he was distracted. It didn’t mean he couldn’t take care of his own problems or that he needed to talk it out with his employee. “I meant to do that,” he added as an afterthought. Had to keep up appearances.

Jo huffed, blond wisps of hair (recently escaped from her ponytail) flittered around her face. “Should I ask Sam, instead? I’m sure he’d tell me without all this macho-man bullshit.”

Dean’s face tightened, pliers slipping from the wire and scratching into the metal of the panel. There was no way in hell Jo missed that reaction and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to connect it with her mention of his brother. He might as well spit it out.

“Sam’s hardware’s crapping out and the replacement parts are looking like upwards of a couple hundred grand. Can’t exactly swing that with the way things are right now.” The words just kinda fell out of Dean’s mouth, thick and low, the way they usually did with a few glasses of the strong stuff. Unfortunately, all Dean had that day was a couple cups of Sam’s shitty coffee (caramel vanilla cream, really?), so there was hardly an excuse for the word vomit. He avoided Jo’s wide-eyed stare, examining the android’s digital nervous system panel with great intensity. That stupid wire was still melted to it.

“What, seriously?” Jo’s brow furrowed. “Is Sam okay?” She put her screwdriver down and pushed the toaster away, which only meant her complete attention was now focused on the side of Dean’s head. He resisted the urge to sigh again, because he really didn’t want to talk about it. Dean wasn’t really a talker when it came to his problems. He liked to keep everything on a need to know basis and solve his own issues, not whine about them. Sam was more of the share and care type.

A muscle in his jaw clenched. Jo reached across the workbench to shove his arm. “Dean! Sam’s okay right?” Dean dropped the pliers, probably rougher than necessary, and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, yeah. He’s just got a real slight limp in his left leg. The knee buckled a few times,” he muttered, already hating himself for letting it get that far without pushing for a maintenance check. Dean was in charge of Sam’s hardware: three black plates screwed into the vertebra of his spine, just at the small of his back. The tech worked more or less as a replacement for the axons in his spinal nerves to facilitate the electric impulses and keep Sam walking.

“For a couple hundred grand it’s gotta be the chips right? The plates and the screws are chump change compared to those things.” Jo’s voice was a little shaky as she rolled a loose screw under her palm, eyes still trained on Dean.

“Half of one chip is completely dead and that by itself is more than our apartment and this shop combined,” he corrected, something settling heavier in his gut. He’d been furiously going over all their options since that morning when he’d practically had to tie Sam down to get into his hardware. His stubborn little brother knew their situation better than anyone and would apparently rather run the high risk of collapsing on a busy street in the city, paralyzed, than put them farther in with the bank.

Dean wanted to punch him for that but, well, it was Sam so he hadn’t really expected less. Either way, he’d gotten into the hardware (with great effort) and found that the right side of his bottom microchip was fried. The chips were the real powerhouses of the whole thing, the stuff that really kept Sam’s spinal cord intact. 

They were nearly a decade old, put in after Sam’s attack right when he was just preparing for grad school. Some little shit who knifed him in the back and was promptly taken care of not seconds after. Dean made sure of that. The incident still had him waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, seeing Sam’s blood coating his hands. At that time, they’d still had their dad to help with all the substantial medical bills and, even with that, they’d only just finished paying them off a couple years ago. Not to mention the student loans for Sam’s law school.

“Damn, Dean. I can talk to Mom if you want? The bar’s doing pretty good recently, we could definitely loan you something,” Jo offered, just as Dean knew she would, her big doe-eyes wide with earnest concern. He shook his head lightly. If it came to the point where Sam couldn’t walk and Dean had no way to come up with the cash, then he wouldn’t hesitate to take what he could get. Hell, he’d rob the same fucking bank they owed if he had to. Dean wasn’t above any of that, but Sam would kill him before he could actually fix him anyway.

“Nah, we’ve still got time. At least until the rest of the chip dies. I’ll figure something out,” Dean assured when Jo looked like she was about to insist. She sat back on her work stool and crossed her arms.

“Like what? Go back to the junkyard? Even in that soul-sucking factory, you couldn’t afford that kind of tech.”

Dean leveled her with a hooded stare, because of course he knew that. This was why he didn’t talk about his problems with other people, it only left him feeling even more helpless and frustrated than before. “I already told Bobby I’d pick up some shifts at Salvage again. The junkyard’s a good place to be when you need parts. Sometimes people don’t realize what they’re tossing.”

“Right, you found that strip of solar tech worth four big ones a couple months ago. I remember. Still, that was luck. People don’t make a living off digging through the trash,” Jo explained, gesturing widely with her hand. It was smudged with red rust and black oil. The toaster had yet to be repaired, sitting in pieces on the worktop.

“Yeah well between Sam’s clients, the shop, and the junkyard, we’ll manage. If it comes down to it, I’ll just sell this place for the hard cash,” Dean said and was a little surprised by how easy it fell off his tongue, no sinking feeling, no reluctance. 

The shop was something he’d dreamt of having ever since he was a dumb kid in high school who’d never wanted anything just for himself. Years and years spent taking apart old bots and electronics at the junkyard finally paid off when he quit and opened up John’s Mechanics. He loved the small place, decorated wall to wall with nothing but endless parts salvaged from his miserable days at the junkyard, and spending his time repairing old machines, doing what he loved.

He’d sell it all in a heartbeat if it meant keeping his baby brother walking. That was just how it went.

It was a testament to how well she knew him that Jo only shook her head with a sad quirk of the lips. “Yeah, like Sam would ever let you do that. And, anyway, neither would I. Mom would drop The Roadhouse for a half a mil before you could get this place on the market.”

“Probably pushing it.” Dean cracked a grin he didn’t really feel. “The bar’s worth maybe a hundred grand if Ellen’s lucky. It’s a dump.”

“You love it though,” Jo smiled back with a giggle, brushing her hair away from her face. She sobered in seconds and placed her small hand on Dean’s forearm, reassuring. “Seriously, Dean, if you guys need help don’t you dare hesitate to ask. We’re not gonna let you and Sam go under without a fight. We love you guys, you know that.”

Dean was saved from having to respond (he was never good with chickflick moments), by the tinny voice of the shop’s AI. “Bobby Singer is calling from Salvage,” it said, stilted and without inflection. The shop wasn’t exactly high end and the built in AI was one of the earlier generations that did little but read basic commands. It was really all Dean needed. He was hardly a technophobe, but he never really understood the hyperrealistic androids or artificial intelligence softwares. Why not just hire people? Plus the uncanny valley thing just really killed it for him.

“Yeah go ahead,” he answered the machine, tilting his head towards the speaker imbedded in the work table. Jo retracted her hand and returned her attention to the torn down toaster.

“Hey son,” Bobby greeted, continuing on without waiting for Dean to reply. “Somethin’ just got dropped off down here you might wanna take a look at. It was taken down as an emergency melt job. This thing’s parts ain’t cheap, figured ya’d wanna pick off somethin’s before I throw it in the fire.”

Jo’s gaze met Dean’s, her eyebrows raised high. “How nice we talking here?” he prompted, the corners of his mouth downturned. How fancy could the thing be if they called it in for a meltdown? Most people usually order a teardown for the cheaper rates and recycling purposes. Dead androids always had parts that could be refurbished. Meltdowns were saved for completely unsalvageable bots or government owned machinery (for obvious reasons).

“We’re talkin’ high-end, Boy. It’s got the exo of a sexbot with the skin and its internal hard skeleton looks like it might be made outta silica nanofibers. That shit ain’t nothin’ to sniff at. All together, I’d say its worth at least ten, even with the damage.” Bobby paused, the sounds of movement coming in through the connection. “Hold on, lemme send you the pictures they took. I ain’t seen it in person, and its been wrapped back up since it got here but even just lookin’ at it you can tell.”

“Ooh,” Jo breathed, big childish grin sliding across her face. She bounced over to the end of the table with the comm screen built in and Dean shook his head. He’d temper his own enthusiasm until he could get his hands on the thing and take it apart himself. He moved down to the screen and tapped the ‘accept’ option.

“Got ‘em, Bobby,” he said as a courtesy, the photos blowing up to their full size on the fifteen by fifteen glass screen. 

One showed a shoulder with tan artificial skin torn (or cut) open to reveal the hardware underneath. Gray ridged metallic plates framed the joint, which was likely a ball joint for greater mobility. The plates were crafted to mimic the lines and bumps generally formed by human anatomy for a more realistic android. Dean zoomed into the image with a simple flick and he could just barely make out the spaces in between the plates where the real tech hid beneath.

It was too dark to make out anything though. There wasn’t anything to give hint that the electrical side of the bot was worth anywhere near as much as its basic machinery. The plating alone was worth a couple hundred each with the silica nanofiber ridges. It was a more recent invention that allowed the metal to give slightly under pressure without snapping, similar to the feel of human bone but much stronger.

The other photos didn’t differ much (more of the arm and collarbone), and it appeared that the machine had been packaged up by its owner and then taken to Salvage. Clear plastic wrap was wound tight around most parts of the main body, and from the mess in the background of the pics, the one with the camera had had to cut through it to get any kind of view of the android. Dean guessed whoever had signed for the meltdown really hadn’t wanted the junkyard to get into their stuff. He wondered if it was some kind of expensive sextoy and that was why it’d been packaged up like a dead body.

Though for that kind of hardware, Dean was willing to get down and dirty. Hell, he’d hose the thing off beforehand if he had to.

“Damn,” Jo whispered, eyes shining. “That’s some fancy work. Man, imagine the whole thing without the skin polymer. I would kill to take that apart and put it back together.”

“I’ll say,” Dean agreed, swiping through the photos once more. This thing could be a veritable goldmine if its insides matched the out.

“That a yes? I can redirect the shippin’ address to your shop right now. It’s sittin’ in the queue waitin’ for meltdown, it always takes at least a couple a days. Long enough for people to forget about it.” Bobby had done this a million times before, even before Dean was on the receiving end. Plenty of things for meltdown were actually sold in one piece to the highest bidder on the bot market. In fact a huge chunk of Bobby’s income was from that alone. It seemed people would pay a lot for the things other people wanted destroyed.

“Yeah, yes, definitely. Send it over. I’ll have it torn down to its base in a few hours,” Dean said quickly, trying to keep his own excitement at bay. Jo was still practically thrumming across the work table from him. The mechanic in him was vibrating with anticipation, he’d never actually gotten to work on material as high-end as what was in this android. And the big brother in him was just as thrilled at the prospect at how much money these parts would fetch him on the bot market. “And thanks Bobby. I really appreciate this.”

“You got it, son. Should be there by tonight or early tomorrow at the latest. Good luck, and tell yer brother I said to take better care of himself,” Bobby said in lieu of a goodbye as the line disconnected. At the silence, Jo settled back down onto her stool, eyes still big and bright.

“What do you think it was for?” she asked, tugging her toaster pieces closer. “I mean, what do people really need such a fancy android to do anyway? Super secret spy missions?” Dean, feeling much better than he had been at the beginning of the day, cocked his head with a smarmy grin.

“Oh, I think you know.”

Jo smirked, sliding clear plastic lenses onto her face. “Sex?”

“With that skin? Hell yeah. I’m sure it’s a total babe under all that plastic.”

“Bet you’re gonna love taking that apart.”

Dean wiggled his eyebrows and was happy Sam wasn’t there to roll his eyes at them.

~

GADreel had been fielding Dean’s nagging phone calls all day, so Sam figured he was in for it when the Light Rail slowed to a halt at his stop. He knew it was Dean’s way of being concerned, but most of the time it was suffocating. It made sense when Sam was twelve, but at thirty?

The train was mostly empty by the time it got out to the Falls, the shabbier outreaches of Sioux District, as most people who braved living so far out hardly had enough cash to ride the Light Rail. Sam’s office was located in the heart of Sioux District, where the latest technology was in nearly every possible square foot of the place and the buildings were shiny and modern.

Sam eased to a stand, allowing his weight to fall almost entirely on his right side. The dull thudding pulse of the hardware in his lower back had become par for the course every time he so much as shifted his lower left leg. It hadn’t gone dead when he was walking, but at the office the tingling sensation of suddenly losing feeling and then regaining it, had happened more than a couple times.

He couldn’t afford (honestly they couldn’t afford) to deal with a burnt chip and thinking about what lie in store for him when they couldn’t replace it, just wasn’t worth the turmoil. He felt tired. The cell in his suit pocket went off for the ninth time that day, the small glass rectangle glowing through the material of his blazer. It was only a second before the phone’s AI, GADreel, recognized the caller and quickly screened it.

It was less than a block from the station to Dean’s workshop (and their apartment above it). Dean could angst a little while Sam made his gradual way there, it only served him right for practically tackling him to the ground and forcing open the metal plate above his waistband that morning. Sam had said he was fine, Dean should have taken his word for it.

He took the elevator down from the Light Rail exit (the train traveled on tracks two stories above the city), unwilling to test the stairs on his shaky knee. Sam had been stewing about Dean’s invasion of his privacy all day, completely unfocused on the case he was supposed to be prepping the settlement for. Good thing master paralegal Charlie had been there to essentially do his job or the whole nine-hour day would’ve been a complete bust.

Underneath the metal tracks of the Light Rail, Sam made his careful way home. The streets of the Falls were generally pretty sparse as the sun fell and cast orange shadows across the rusted piping that weaved through buildings like fat snakes. If Sioux District was the stark whites and solid blacks of modernism and high technology, then the Falls were the red and browns of technology long past, innovations that lay forgotten in the wake of the digital age.

His left hand clenched tightly around the crossbody bag over his chest when his knee wobbled just enough to stutter his steps. It was very slightly worse than it had been a few days ago, Sam was almost positive. The working half of his second chip was trying desperately to make up for the missing facilitation bridge and was shooting more impulses than necessary down into the receivers. These were all things Sam already knew (minus the technical jargon) when Dean had relayed it to him, with shaky hands and a hard expression. It wouldn’t be long before the entire chip wore itself down and died completely. Goodbye left leg.

Sam was worried, but not enough to bother people with his issue. He’d figure it out when it happened. As it was, a slight limp and the occasional stumble, Sam could manage. If worst came to worst, he could get the mechanical brace from his recovery period and use that. He was pretty sure they still had it tucked away somewhere.

He was trying to remember where Dean had put it, hoping his brother hadn’t taken it apart and sold it, when he came upon the shop. There was a large van parked out front, up against the grimy sidewalk, with SALVAGE emblazoned across it in gaudy red. The turning of its ignition was loud in the quiet as its lights glowed and it pulled away. Sam frowned, watching it rumble off and wincing at the growling whine that always screeched from the engine.

Bobby was obviously still doing his bot market, under the table dealings. Sam sighed and wondered if he, as a lawyer, should find something ethically wrong with his friend and brother’s way of making side cash. His knee wiggled just slightly, a sudden start of electricity zipping down his femur, and Sam figured he should hurry inside before he collapsed on the sidewalk and proved Dean right. Besides, he was curious about what Bobby could possibly have delivered that necessitated The Van. Most of the time, he mailed parts to them in packages. The Van meant whatever it was would probably be extremely expensive, extremely large, or extremely illegal.

Knowing those two, Sam was willing to bet on all three.

The brick and mortar of the shop was rough against Sam’s calluses as he eased along the wall of it towards the entrance. He wasn’t taking any chances with losing his balance. The semi-modern sliding doors weren’t motion activated anymore (hardly any were these days) and he had to wait for a beat as the AI’s external camera focused on his face. The metal doors glided open, followed by the stilted electronic voice of the shop, “welcome home, Sam.”

Dean’s shop had once been for cars and the like, with the hard concrete flooring and steel beams it held true to that aesthetic. The space was still rather small in spite of that, surely it had been a mechanic’s personal car shop way back when. It had enough space for Dean to keep a side project or two in the corner with his large work table in the center. Shelves lined the walls, tools mounted up on hooks and cauterizers hanging from the ceiling by their black wires. It was a mess of a place, but that was fine because clients hardly ever showed up in person.

The fluorescent overhead lights beamed white down on the tabletop, arms of adjustable magnifiers and lamps stuck out from the metal like spider-legs. Dean was standing over his workspace, the broad width of his shoulders tight as he regarded whatever was splayed out in front of him. He had his back to Sam. There was no way he hadn’t heard the AI, so it would seem he was simply choosing to ignore his brother’s presence. He had goggles propped up on his head, and his canvas work apron draped over his shoulders, but not cinched at the waist.

Sam squinted down at the table, curious in spite of the sort-of fight but not really thing that had happened that morning. He took short steps away from the door and used his height advantage to see over Dean’s tense form.

A very human looking body lay on the table, skin bleached pale under the bright lighting. It was naked and male, eyes closed and brows screwed up in a permanent frown. It even had five o’clock shadow and Sam had to admit he was impressed by the lines that creased its face, the surprisingly minute details. He honestly would have thought it was a human being, if not for the obvious seams that lined it’s joints, breaks in the skin polymer to allow for maximum movement.

They tracked all over its body, separating arm from torso, running across its chest just beneath its clavicle, encircling its left thigh and dipping into the V of its right hip. Sam had seen that kind of work on androids built for things that necessitated the most fluid (and more human) of movements. Things like sextoys, personal assistants, customer service workers. The ones that needed the mobility and natural grace to fend off the uncanny valley.

The breaks in skin, the black seams, kept the metal plates beneath from touching so that the android could walk without anything grinding together. It was fairly new technology if Sam wasn’t mistaken and he’d never actually seen it in person before. He had the strong urge to reach forward and touch, just to see if the skin polymer felt as smooth and lifelike as it looked. But the idea of touching a naked man (no matter how inanimate said man was) while he (it) was out just seemed invasive, and he kept his hands at his sides.

“Please tell me you didn’t accidentally kill someone, Dean,” Sam mumbled, blinking widely at what looked so human, he did feel a little unnerved. He was only partially joking, spotting the incision in his (its) right shoulder, artificial skin peeled back to reveal glossy metal hardware. Even he could tell it was high end.

“It’s an android,” Dean replied unnecessarily, arms crossed over his chest. Sam could just make out the pronounced scowl on his face, scruff of his jaw looking rougher than usual. Obviously something was biting at him, but Sam couldn’t tell if it was because Sam had been ignoring him all day or the disturbingly humanoid robot lying on the work table.

“From Bobby? What are you planning on doing to him?” Sam finally decided that carrying on the conversation as if Dean didn’t look like he was about to have an aneurysm was the best course of action. He had to step closer to the body on the table (er, robot) so that he could lean his hip against the edge and take the weight off his numb knee. 

Dean didn’t seem to notice, glare still fully directed at the naked android as if it had reached up and slapped him in the face not five seconds before Sam walked in. It looked like it was only taking a nap and not completely powered down, Sam honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that’d happened. “It,” Dean said, voice gravelly.

Sam glanced at the android. “What?”

“Not ‘him’, it. It’s a machine, Sam,” he clarified, but his gaze never stuttered from where it looked to be boring a hole into the android’s chest. Sam didn’t notice anything odd about it, tan skin (looking sickly pale under the fluorescents) and surprisingly realistic nipples. His idea about the realism necessary for sextoys resurfaced. Why else would you give a robot nipples anyway, they weren’t even useful on human men. His face was oddly attractive in that broody, disgruntled kind of way. Aesthetically speaking.

“I know, you keep saying that,” Sam said, picking up his and Dean’s conversation again (if you could really call it that). “What’s up with you?” His words had Dean clenching his biceps and he uncrossed his arms with a deep breath. Finally, he turned to Sam.

“How’s your tech?” he asked, but there wasn’t the consternation from before marring his face as he regarded Sam. They were eye-level, with Sam leaning against the table, and all he got was earnest concern making his brother’s gaze kind of dewy. He was acting weird and it was because of the android.

“Fine. Knee gave out a few times. It was nothing I couldn’t handle,” Sam answered, figuring the honest route was better than the somewhat scathing reply he had been preparing since he’d stormed out the door that morning. The way Dean was pulled taut, stiff with something he wasn’t telling Sam, made him want to get to the bottom of that mystery rather than argue again about something neither of them could really fix.

Dean nodded, a short sharp thing, and returned his attention to the machinery spread out before them. Sam glanced back and forth between the two, hands folded against his thigh. He (the robot) was high end, so surely Dean was planning to tear it down to its base and peddle off all the parts. With how flashy the hardware inside appeared, Sam couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they could afford a new chip after all.

“So, uh, Dean?” His brother’s eyes cut over to him and Sam tilted his head at the android. Dean looked away and his fist clenched, knuckles going white. He was staring at it’s bare chest again, face hard as metal. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

“Does it-” his breath caught in his throat and he swallowed. “Does it look like it’s breathing?” His voice was practically a growl and Sam stared at him, incredulous.

“Breathing? Dean’s it’s an android.” Great, now he was parroting the line. Sam looked over at the flat expanse of the android’s chest. It was hyperrealistic, better than anything Sam had ever seen, in person or on the big screen. He could understand why it might be unnerving to his brother, especially considering Dean’s distaste for the humanoid robots. Still, Sam was always one to give the benefit of a doubt.

He stared long and hard at the android’s chest, leaning down for closer inspection, the ends of his hair tickling his jaw. At first, he saw the same he’d seen every time before, an unmoving solid block of machine and manufactured flesh. But the more he watched the more it’s ribcage seemed to expand ever so slightly before compressing, expand compress expand compress. Tiny gradual movements, hardly discernable without intense scrutiny.

Dean was watching him as Sam leaned back and turned wide eyes to his brother. “Maybe… it’s some kind of new thing, y’know? Make the robots more realistic,” Sam suggested, shrugging his right shoulder and turning slightly from his perch against the table to look down at the android’s still face. His knowledge of robotics and their mechanics in general was nearly zero, not like Dean who was as near as it got to being an expert. HIs input was only random shots in the dark.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Dean said, leaning forward to put his hand under the android’s nose. “You can feel it’s breath. If this is some kind of aesthetic tech, it’s way past anything I’ve ever seen even the best manufacturers bother with. Don’t you think we would’ve heard about this on the news or something?”

“What are you saying Dean? That Bobby dropped a person off?” Sam huffed a laugh, corners of his mouth quirking up. “Look at his shoulder. Look at all the hardware on him. He’s an android, no question. It’s gotta be some kind of lowkey experimental tech, maybe something’s wrong with him and that’s why they sent him to the junkyard. It’s not like he has a pulse or anything.”

Sam’s offhand remark had Dean’s eyebrows drawing together and then he shifted his hand to press to the android’s throat, just beneath his jaw. Sam watched as his brother’s face shifted, expression struck. He jerked his hand away as if burned. “S-Sam.”

Immediately, Sam pressed his own fingers in the spot just vacated by Dean’s, noting how warm it was. That had to leftover body heat from Dean, surely. The skin throbbed dully against the pads of his fingers. Sam swallowed hard and ghosted his hand down to the chest, pressing his palm over where a heart would be, if it were alive. He could feel the rise and fall of breath, the light beating of something under the skin. It was warm to the touch.

“But all the hardware Dean, he has to be android. I mean look at this,” Sam said more to convince himself than his brother, as he ran his finger along the incision in the skin-polymer. He could feel the hard metal of an android exoskeleton, the edge of the artificial skin dry and bloodless. Cold.

“Cyborg?” Dean’s voice was deceptively calm.

Being a cyborg himself, Sam was hardly foreign to concept of humans loaded up with technology to enhance or mend body functions. It occurred to him just as he retracted his hand, eyes running over the delineations between shoulder and torso, the way that every black chasm of separate plates all connected to the trunk of the body. The arms and legs, the side of his stomach, all of them were artificial but there was nothing to prove the very center of the body, the neck, the head, was anything but the real deal. No gaps in skin, no hardware, nothing.

“What if he is? Can he wake up? I mean…” Sam trailed off. It seemed plausible that if a person had been in a terrible accident he might need that much tech to return to his life before. He understood that more than anyone. But he was powered down at the moment. How did he end up at junkyard of all places? If he was really just a man, why hadn’t he woken up in the midst of being carted around like a hunk of garbage?

Dean shifted around Sam to situate himself at the head of the table. He reached down and pried open an eye. A dilated pupil surrounded by blue iris stared up at them. It didn’t move and the pupil didn’t contract in the harsh light. “That can’t be good.”

“Well we know he’s not dead. Could it be like a brain thing?” Sam suggested, standing up straight to give Dean more room for his examination. Which is what it really felt like it was, instead of his usual poking and prodding. It was different when the subject was a living breathing human being. Sam watched, hand bracing the table in case his knee decided to buckle again, as Dean stuck out his lower lip, contemplating.

He lifted the android--man?--slightly up off the table, turning him just enough so that he could see the back of his head and neck. At the edge of his hairline was a black rectangle inserted into the base of the skull much the same way that Sam’s own hardware was. It reminded Sam of the old disk drives on outdated computers.

“This is… well, first of all, illegal,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows and reaching into the front pocket of his work apron. He pulled out a thin rod of some sort that tapered off into two very fine wire-like prongs.

“What is it?” Sam asked quietly as Dean bent to insert the two prongs into identical holes on the left side of the rectangle.

“It’s a drive cavity for AI software. You know for androids? I don’t know why the hell you’d put one in a person, we have brains to do all the things an AI would do. Even if this guy couldn’t handle controlling so much hardware on his own and they needed to install a background program to run the smaller maintenance issues, it wouldn’t need something as heavy duty as a drive cavity. This is like full scale CPU shit.”

Dean wiggled the rod and a distinct popping noise followed the movement, the rectangle sprung loose from its cavity by barely a centimeter, if that. “Aha, there we go. Let’s take a look at this baby.” Dean’s eyes were bright, curiosity obviously winning out over the complete oddness of the current situation. He dropped the tool back into his apron and grabbed the drive between his thumb and forefinger, tugging. His grip slid off and he grunted. “Damn, it’s stuck in there.”

He tried a couple more times before Sam spied a pair of pliers on the shelf a few feet off and leaned over to scoop them off. “Try this.” Dean eyed the offering with no small amount of reluctance, before giving in and putting them to use. The ridged steel gripped the drive much better than Dean’s grubby fingers and ripped the drive free with the sound of something hard tearing apart.

Sam and Dean stared openly at the drive, or what was left of it. The black square, about as thick as a cassette tape, looked like it held been held over a flame for too long. Melted plastic and metal bubbled in a solid crust along the edges, the top of it worn away almost completely so that they could see the inside of it. 

A silver disk, smudged in black white and blues, and partially melted, was visible along with some motherboard and chip looking technology that Sam couldn’t name if he wanted to. It looked important though and he wrinkled his nose as Dean turned it over and over. “How did that happen?” he asked, eyes unintentionally falling on the still face of the man on the table.

Dean continued to frown at the drive before gently placing it down and sliding one of the lamps branching off the table over. He flicked it on. “Can you lift him back up so I can see the cavity?”

Sam did as told, keeping one hand on the worktop, he grabbed the man’s shoulder (cold to the touch) and pulled him up. Dean pushed his head so that his chin touched his collar, and adjusted the light so that it shined into the disk cavity. Minutes passed and Dean took another tool from his apron to poke around inside, brow creased.

“Nothing in the cavity is melted. It looks this thing just overheated or malfunctioned and fried itself internally. Kinda like what that half of your chip did,” Dean finally said, waving for Sam to set the man back down and returning his attention to the destroyed drive.

“What causes that?” 

Sam found himself moving his hand to the cyborg’s chest, splaying his fingers across it again. Warmth pressed into his palm. He rubbed the tips of his fingers against the techline that ran along the man’s collarbones, a strip of metal under fake flesh that connected the shoulders together. Cool against his skin. He recognized the contrast from the base of his own spine where human gave way to machine.

“With yours it was just age, y’know, wear and tear. That could’ve been this,” he scratched at the disk with his metal tool. “Or a power surge can fry things. Bad wiring. No ventilation. A million things, really.” Some of the melted metal and plastic gave way under Dean’s tool and revealed more of the disk and adjacent motherboard.

A sudden intake of breath had Sam dragging his eyes up to Dean’s face. His jaw was slack and he stared openly down at the disk drive as if it had sprouted legs. “Dean? What is it?”

Dean tore a microchip free, holding it under the light of the lamp. He scrutinized it, lips still slightly parted in what could only be something between awe and horror. Sam’s hand curled into a fist on the man’s chest as it rose and fell. He waited as Dean worked things over silently.

The chip fell to the table. “I think this is a Soul Disk, Sam.” Dean’s knuckles pressed against his mouth as he glared down at the man spread out before them. Sam had heard of Soul Disks. They were illegal and no one honestly thought it could be done, but the idea of attempting it had been deemed unethical and inhumane in court a decade ago. Some thought the process was another way for mankind to play God.

If he recalled the case properly, it was the idea of uploading a human’s consciousness, their memories and thoughts, what made them who they were (their ‘soul’) into a CPU. Essentially breaking down everything that humans are into a series of numbers and sequences, much like DNA. Then taking all of that data and loading it into a disk that could be inserted into an android. A way of living forever.

As far as Sam knew it was only an idea presented by some CEO of a large manufacturer, hoping to attempt and eventually perfect the method. The courts ruled against it before the project could get off the ground and that was the last Sam had ever heard the term ‘soul disk.’

“Why?” was all Sam could really manage, letting his hand splay back out across the man’s chest. The idea of someone loading his brain onto that fried disk made Sam’s stomach roll. If it was destroyed then wasn’t this person laying on Dean’s worktop more or less brain dead? His chest rose under Sam’s touch.

“Why else would someone have a drive cavity? This thing is identical to all the AI software disk drives I’ve ever seen. I even have a few of these things in my junk drawer. Except this has this weird chip I’ve never seen in a drive before. It expands the memory way beyond what you’d need for any kind of AI, even the really complex ones. I mean, I bet a human’s memories and stuff would need more space, right?”

Sam nodded. It made sense in a gross kind of way. “Okay, but then is this guy brain dead? That thing is toasted, Dean. It must’ve blown out recently, I doubt this guy’s vitals can sustain themselves for much longer without any conscious. People in comas are usually hooked up to a million things in hospitals.” This guy could literally be dying on the worktop, right underneath Sam’s fingers. He didn’t say that out loud but Dean got the gist, his face twisting.

He thumped a fist onto the table, expression shadowed. “Fuck, I was hoping to get some serious cash for this tech. We could’ve gotten a new chip for the price this shit would get on the bot market.” Sam’s hand twitched on the man’s chest, finding odd comfort from the steady pulse, the unwavering intake and exhale of breath. He was still alive.

“We’re not just gonna wait for him to die and sell his body, Dean.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Dean didn’t look at him.

“What are you saying? He’s still breathing, his heart’s still beating. He needs medical care-”

“So what, they can hook him up to machines until someone decides to pull the plug and he dies anyway? So we can get questioned by the police for having what’s basically a living breathing pile of illegal technology in the first place? Oh, we could explain that he’s not ours, we got it from Salvage- oh wait, that’s illegal too. You wanna go to jail, on top of not being able to walk, Sam?” Dean wasn’t yelling but he looked like he wanted to, jaw clenching and unclenching as he ran his hands through his hair roughly. The goggles tumbled to the ground. “If you have any more ideas, I’d love to hear them because so far we’ve got jack shit.”

Sam didn’t go to law school for nothing, he could think of something. Surely. He glanced around the workshop, mind working furiously to try and figure out just what the fuck he was trying to accomplish here. It was true they needed the cash this guy’s tech would get them. He was gone in all ways but physically. His body was more or less an empty case, a vacant shell, useless without something inside to make it run. Just like the gaping drive cavity in the back of his neck.

The chest under his hand rose. Sam cocked his head and then turned sharp eyes to his brother. “You said you’ve got disk drives in a junk drawer, right?”

Dean’s brows furrowed. “Yeah, so?”

“Are drive cavities universal?”

Sam could clearly see the realization dawn on his brother’s face as his frown gave way and something like a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, actually they are. I don’t know how compatible the outdated software would be with the newer tech. But maybe if it was one of the adaptive ones.” Dean blinked. “Wait isn’t this, like, immoral or something?”

“It’s this or we leave him to die, you decide.”

A short nod, “true. Let me see what I’ve got.” Dean pushed away from the worktop and dug around in the mess of bins he had lined up against the southern wall. Sam refocused his attention on the nude form of the man under his hand. 

He wondered if they should find him some clothing for deceny’s sake, but figured an AI wouldn’t care and whoever this man had been before the disk melted was gone. The thought was grounding, but they couldn’t let this body (because really was it a man?) die at the shop. Silently, Sam apologized to the owner of the body and hoped the man was resting in peace, whether he died with the disk or even before that in the initial accident that made him this way.

“Okay, I’ve got two adaptive AI disk drives from the junkyard in decent condition,” Dean said, returning to the table with two black squares nearly identical to the one he’d yanked out of the cyborg’s skull. “This one’s from one of the earlier sexbots, the MEG one point oh. Very sexy.” Dean wiggled his eyebrows and Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead pursing his lips and tilting his head until Dean continued. “This one’s military grade from the soldier software line. I think this one was discontinued because they were going against their programmed protocol or something. You remember that thing with the CAS? This is one of those.”

Sam remembered. The CAS line, being an adaptive software, adapted far enough to ignore certain orders and go off on its own. It was a big deal when the military started losing the androids left and right on foreign soil. Eventually, they discontinued the CAS in favor of the debugged and therefore wholly obedient RAPH line. Dean took one look at his face and nodded, holding up the CAS.

“Best bet probably. Wouldn’t want him pawing all over you in sexbot mode, huh? It’d be hard to explain to visitors anyway,” Dean hesitated. “Although we could make some cash off him if he was a sexbot, huh? Prostitute him out.”

“You’re disgusting,” Sam said in lieu of cuffing Dean’s head, trying not to feel that familiar nausea curl in his stomach. This was still a human being, even if he didn’t have anything in his head anymore, his body was human. It just seemed inherently wrong to even entertain the idea of pimping him out like a piece of equipment, knowing that a beating heart was inside.

“I’m just saying. His junk should still be in working order if the looks of the techlines are enough to go by,” Dean said, but he dropped the MEG software into an open drawer. “Alright, lift ‘im up it’s showtime.” Sam complied, breathing a deep cautious breath as he pulled the body completely upright into a sitting position. His head lolled forward completely exposing the drive cavity and his arms hung limply at his sides. Dean stepped forward and positioned the CAS drive at the mouth of the opening, sharing a short glance with Sam before shoving it into place.

It settled in with a click. They waited, Sam’s left arm braced across the man’s chest and the other steady on his shoulder. Dean leaned around and peered up at his face with narrowed eyes. “Shouldn’t take long to settle,” he muttered, putting his hands in the apron’s front pockets. The faint hum of a disk whirring to life emanated from the base of the man’s head and just like that Sam felt the body in his arms jerk into animation.

The cyborg’s head shot up and Dean stumbled back. Sam’s grip on his shoulders inadvertently tightened at the sudden movement and he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. Machinery worked to life, joints shifting, metal plates rotating, the android equivalent to stretching and testing their muscles. He opened his eyes slowly as if gradually coming into cognizance. Sam was only half a foot from his face, if that, and he got a full on view of big blue eyes staring at him under furrowed brows.

He worked his jaw and blinked once, essentially glaring at Sam but his gaze was blank as if he were staring into a black room. Sam glanced over at Dean and he muttered, “initial start up’s always slow” by way of explanation. The blue eyes darted from one point to the next seeing something that Sam couldn’t. It appeared, at least, that he could support himself now and Sam moved to pull away.

Just as he eased back, a cold hand shot up and enclosed around his left wrist, stilling him. Sam resisted the immediate urge to jerk himself free, wide eyes darting from the restraining fist on his arm to the suddenly dull gaze squinting at him. Dean had started at the sudden movement too, grip on something in the pocket of his apron. His jaw clenched tight and his eyes trained on where Sam was being squeezed.

The cyborg tilted his head very minutely, still squinting at Sam. His lips parted and Sam held his breath, trying to slow his rapid heartbeat. A slow blink and then he was talking. “I am CAS.” His words were roughened and husky, throat probably dry with disuse and dehydration. His stare bored into Sam’s with an intensity that made Sam want to squirm away. “Proprietor identification is required to finish initial start up.”

He spoke with inflection, unlike the AI’s Sam was used to where their speech felt stilted and awkward through the speakers. His voice was pleasant, but his obviously computerized sequence of words made the whole thing strange. Sam looked to Dean again, because androids was more his thing than Sam’s. Dean stepped closer, still gripping whatever weapon he had in his pocket.

“793967-DW,” he said, relaying his security ID number with a steady voice. The cyborg/AI hybrid (Sam had no idea) didn’t so much as look in Dean’s direction, gaze still trained on Sam’s and hand still holding him trapped.

“Proprietor identification is required to finish initial start up,” he repeated, effectively ignoring Dean. It might have just been Sam, but he seemed to lean forward, the distance between them diminishing as if to emphasize who exactly he was addressing. Dean growled.

“Hey, buddy. I’m your proprietor not him,” he said sharply. Sam, still pinned by the foggy blue eyes holding his gaze and refusing to break the contact, figured there was probably nothing wrong if he took ownership of the software. It wasn’t like it mattered one way or another.

“Dean, it’s fine,” Sam said and his voice was quiet. The eyes darted to his mouth, frown easing from the cyborg’s brow. The expressions this software was capable of emulating already was as unnerving as it was amazing, in an unreal sort of way. It was almost as if Sam were being manhandled by a human being. He guessed in a way he still sort of was. “726946-SW.”

“Proprietor Sam Winchester,” he said quietly and nodded his head curtly, pulling the identification from the network as all AIs did. His gaze still maintained that clouded, dilated look. “CAS is an adaptive artificial intelligence software designed for combat and war by the military of Americas. What will you call this unit?”

It really did honestly feel like someone was just reading a computer manual and not a software relaying it’s encoded instructions. Sam floundered for some kind of name and finally settled on the first thing that came to mind, “Cas!” Dean shot him an unimpressed stare. Sam had never been too creative when naming things, he would be the first to admit it.

‘Cas’ closed his eyes then and sat for a few long seconds before opening them again. This time they were bright, the kind of depth behind them one expected to see from an animate creature. He found Sam’s gaze immediately and regarded him. “Hello Sam Winchester,” he said politely, hand still tight around Sam’s wrist, still keeping him close.

“Um, hi?” Sam said, at a loss. He hardly interacted with androids on a daily basis, let alone an AI occupying a human body.

“I have one question.” Cas’s voice was still rough and Sam felt his electric shoulder roll under his palm as if testing the mobility of his body.

“Okay?” Sam hoped that was permission. He’d never been addressed this way by an AI, generally they just went ahead and asked. “Um, go ahead.”

Cas blinked hard, brow creased and lips pursed. “Is this a defective android?”

~

To say Dean was sick of sharing a living space with the human bodied AI software was a drastic understatement. Every night when he watched it--sorry, him--follow in Sam’s footsteps like an imprinted duck, he wanted nothing more than to jump on him and tear his disk drive out. And probably smash it into pieces too. The CAS’s weird affection for Sam wouldn’t have grated on his nerves so badly if it didn’t dislike Dean so much.

Something about how he treated it--him, shit--like he was an object. Which was hilarious to Dean because he didn’t know that the “adaptive” in adaptive software meant it could develop the ability to lie to itself. Yet they had an AI who was honestly starting to believe that the warm squishy thing it piloted was a part of itself. Himself. Whatever, Dean was never good at killing old habits.

They’d had Cas for nearly a week and the AI seemed to be adjusting to human occupancy rather well, though there continued to be many complaints about the defectiveness of their physiology. Out of Sam’s earshot of course, the lucky bastard got to go off to work five days out of the week and wasn’t stuck indoors with a whiny AI.

As Sam was out often with work, it had been Dean’s duty to explain to Cas why he felt that dryness in his throat, or that pressure in his lower torso, or that weird cramping sensation in his middle. Dean didn’t ever recall Sam being this much of an annoyance when he was little. And that was merely the human training regime, not even to mention the constant banal questions Cas was capable of asking.

“Will the throbbing in my chest cavity ever stop? Is that something your bodies always do?”

Dean licked his lips, eyes half lidded, as he cauterized the wiring of the toaster Jo never finished. Keeping Jo out of the loop had proved to not only be impossible but also a wasted effort anyway. But she tended to stare open mouthed at Cas and follow him around asking as many annoying questions as he did and doubling the obnoxious levels of the whole room. Her curiosity was cute, but Dean could only handle so much of it when the oblivious Cas was around too.

So he sent her out on runs with the trailer to knock on doors and ask for any broken machinery. She was better at it than Dean anyway. Half the time they slammed the door in his face or pulled a knife on him. Jo had them eating out of the palm of her hand and dumping even brand new tech into her hands for a “check up” or whatever BS lie she’d fed them. Dean always knew hiring her on was a good idea.

He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead with the back of his hand and spared Cas a glance. The AI was standing near the automatic doors, fiddling with the shop’s intelligence software controls in the panel of the wall. He tended to hover around the doors when Sam was off at work. It was the kind of behavior that would have been adorable in the form of a small puppy, but in the tall broody form of a half-naked cyborg, it just didn’t have the same appeal.

“You know what I don’t get?” Dean asked, his favorite rhetorical smirk gracing his mouth. “Why you keep asking me things you could find out through the magic of the internet in point oh-one seconds.” He flicked his cauterizer and the wire on the end rippled in Cas’s direction.

Cas raised his consternated face to squint at Dean in that way he did. “You said that prolonged silences were awkward. I’m only trying to alleviate it.”

Dean’s face fell. He tugged his goggles back down and focused on the second wire. “Yeah well, I was talking more about when you just stood there and stared at me. Anyway, what are you even doing over there?”

“I’m disabling your AI.”

Dean almost dropped the cauterizer. “You’re what? That thing controls the doors leave it alone!” True he didn’t necessarily like the system and it’s tinny robot voice, however that did not mean he wanted to be locked into his own shop for eternity with nothing but a dry-voiced cyborg who preferred his brother.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to link the shop remotely to my own network,” Cas assured, focused on the command screen of the panel. Dean narrowed his eyes, staring at the AI from across the shop, unsure if this was the stalker-boyfriend equivalent of installing cameras in his girlfriend’s house.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Dean said under his breath, shaking his head. He was fairly certain he’d seen Cas poking around on Sam’s cell a couple days back too. At the time he hadn’t thought anything of it, just technology finding a morbid interest in other technology. Now he wondered if Cas had subtly replaced Sam’s GADreel software with his own personal network. Dean curled his lip. Gross.

“It makes things simpler. Considering you and Sam are harboring illegally modified technology, I would think you’d want a safer network.” Cas had a knack for saying things in the same drab tone as usual but somehow making it sound as if a z-snap should follow the statement. Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah whatever, stalker bot,” he muttered, returning his attention to the toaster that was in great need of his aid. Dean really should start charging Sam a babysitter’s fee. Sam was Cas’s proprietor after all. Not that Sam could even afford to pay Dean what he’d charge.

They still hadn’t found a way to fix Sam’s hardware. The burnt chip was still fizzling in and out of functionality and last time he pestered his brother into giving him an update on how bad things were getting (which was around a few days back) he’d lost feeling all the way up to his hip. 

It was only a matter of time before it stopped happening in spurts and simply died. Who knew where Sam would be when it happened. The idea made his stomach clench uncomfortably and Dean wished his stupid brother would just work from home for a couple weeks. He refused, of course, citing a very important case he was prepping for. Sometimes Dean regretted funding law school, if only that it meant his little brother was gone nearly all the time.

“Dean?”

Cas’s voice cut into Dean’s thoughts and he blinked hard, dragging a distracted glance over in the AI’s direction. “You’re melting a hole into the frame of the toaster.” 

Dean jerked his hand up and released the trigger on the cauterizer to see a large black sinkhole in the shiny metallic surface. Jo was going to kill him. He shoved the ruined toaster away with rumbly exhale and let his head rest on the worktop, cheek squishing up and making his lips pout out. 

Sometimes, Dean would appreciate a very long nap so he could pretend Sam was perfectly fine and they weren’t in financial straits and Cas wasn’t some technology equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster living under their roof. He wasn’t even as good as a regular AI packed android. He ate food and therefore was as expensive to maintain as an adopted child. Dean closed his eyes, frowning so hard he was starting to get a headache.

“Dean.” The rough voice was suddenly not a foot from him and Dean shot upright, twitching and glaring wholeheartedly at the AI standing in his personal space.

“What did I say about space? I know Sam doesn’t mind the, uh, closeness, but I’m a guy who needs to be able to breathe without smelling you, thank you.” He reached out and gently pressed against Cas’s bare shoulder. The cyborg faltered back a few steps, but the furrow in his brow was more severe than usual and Dean retracted his hand with a half shrug. “What? What is so important you couldn’t say it from a respectable distance?”

Dean could see the bob of Cas’s adam’s apple in his throat and he raised an eyebrow. Cas averted his gaze to the floor, scowl firmly in place. “What’s wrong with Sam’s technology?” Dean blinked at him. Had they never mentioned it in front of him before? Surely he’d eavesdropped on plenty of their conversations? Dean just sort of figured all AI’s did that. After all, it’s what he would do if he had the ability.

He leaned back on the workstool, stretching his arms back and groaning at the pop in his joints. Cas waited patiently, watching him with a concerned curiosity. He sighed. “Short version? One of the bridge chips is almost totally burnt out. We can’t afford to replace it. Those things are worth an arm and a leg,” Dean paused, glancing Cas over. “In your case, probably literally.”

Cas’s scowl deepened if that was even possible. He sat in silence for a moment and Dean figured he was doing some internal networking or whatever it was AI’s did in the cyberspace when they got quiet. Finally, he blinked and fixed Dean with a strangely intent stare. “Do you have a scalpel or knife of some sort?”

“I don’t know how I feel about giving sharp weapons to someone who’s eyeing me like you are,” Dean muttered, sliding his stool back a few inches, but reaching for the drawer of splices along the wall. He took out the dullest one he had and offered it to the AI, figuring if the guy had been planning on shanking him, he would’ve done it a long time ago.

It was then that Dean witnessed one of the single most horrifying things he had ever had the misfortune of seeing up close. Cas thrust the edge of the blade into the meaty part of his shoulder, where the joint would’ve been most accessible and dragged down. It was, thankfully, the opposite shoulder to the one Dean had kindly repaired with leftover grafts the other day.

The AI’s face remained impassive (not unexpectedly) as he plucked the splice free and dropped it onto the worktop. Dean was already curling his lip in disgust, only to suppress the sudden urge to vomit at the sight of the man himself digging his fingers into the incision, sliding underneath the artificial skin like flesh eating worms or something. 

Dean was hardly squeamish when it came to android hardware, but somehow the site of the android itself physically digging into its own body made his stomach squirm. Not to mention that fact that Cas was a cyborg and one wrong move could send blood spurting out from his very human body parts.

Cas glanced down at where he’d managed to wiggle his fingers to, skin polymer tearing with the stretch, and clenched his teeth. Dean assumed it was a way of concentrating as there were no pain receptors in his hardware. He must have found whatever he’d been digging for because his hand balled into a fist and the sound of something metal clicking free could be heard among the squish of exoskeleton lubricant. His fingers resurfaced from beneath the skin of his shoulder with a tiny black chip between thumb and forefinger.

“It’s an extraneous bridge chip. Newer models are built with them as extended studies have shown that over longer periods of time the bridge chip burns out,” Cas informed like some kind of wikipedia article, proffering the chip to Dean with a serious look on his face. Dean had actually never heard that before the words came out of Cas’s mouth, and he eyed the chip with a skeptical raise of his eyebrow. It looked like the ones nestled into the slots of Sam’s hardware.

“Are you sure you don’t need that? Your arm’s not gonna fall off or something is it? Sam wouldn’t forgive me if he saw you stumbling around without an arm.” 

Dean glanced at the gaping hole in Cas’s shoulder, the black plates visible. One of them had been slightly knocked off it’s track with Cas digging around underneath it and he knew he’d have to patch it up before Sam got back. Otherwise, his brother would definitely think Dean had jumped the android and ripped the chip out of his shoulder. Sam thought Dean was a savage. Dean wasn’t going to admit that he’d entertained the idea on more than one occasion.

Cas rolled his shoulder and even raised his left arm to hold the chip in that hand, a demonstration of his maintained mobility apparently. “It’s fine. I have one in my other shoulder, two in my upper exterior spinal plates and two more in the sockets of my knee joints. I’ve done an internal scan and all of my hardware is working at top performance.”

Dean wouldn’t say it, but he was internally a little floored. He took the microchip in hand and turned it over and over under the work lamp. It was the real deal, identical to the others in Sam’s tech, and in pristine condition. He really shouldn’t have expected less considering the sheer extent of Cas’s internal specs in comparison to even the newer things Dean had seen on the markets in recent months. It was worth one-hundred grand, this tiny chip, and Cas had literally just torn it out of his own body and handed it over. Just to fix Sam.

He kind of felt like hugging the AI. “Thanks, Cas.” He settled for instead, turning sincere eyes on Cas’s own blue and offering a nod of solidarity. Cas’s lips sort of tilted up in something kind of like a smile. Dean wasn’t sure if that expression had been programmed into his software of if he’d learned it.

“For Sam,” Cas said, nodding to himself, as if it were reassurance. Dean blinked at him and grinned maybe just a little bit. He supposed this bumbling, awkward AI wasn’t so bad.

“For Sam.”

~

The ache in Sam’s back was throbbing more than it had ever before and he felt exhaustion settle heavy in his bones like a soaking wet blanket. He just wanted to get home and sleep for the next forty-eight hours. Charlie had gathered up nearly enough evidence against the defendant that they were sure to settle the case. It was a civil suit with Crowley Corp, a mass producer of sex bots. They weren’t for sale though, actually on the contrary, CC was more or less running a factory of sex workers in the form of fifty high-end androids. You could take one home for a night for a price.

According to a client, it appeared Crowley’s bots weren’t just sleeping with their customers (plenty of which were on the upper end of the pay scale) but also gathering blackmail. Snooping into the networks of all the smarthomes they entered with bypass codes that things like sexbots weren’t allowed to have in their softwares in the first place. The whole scandal was kept pretty much under wraps, supposedly due to the things the bots had found out. But Sam’s client came forward with plenty enough to take Crowley’s skeevy business down once and for all.

“We got this in the bag, Sam,” Charlie assured, short red hair flouncing with every step as they headed down the lobby of their office building.

“I know, I’ve got the best girl on it,” Sam grinned, and Charlie swatted at him.

“Shut-up.” But she flashed Sam an embarrassed smile. They scanned out their ID’s and the glass doors slid open, allowing them to exit out into the junction. Sam’s office was in a large multi-office skyscraper in the heart of Sioux District, where all the foot traffic found its way. Charlie managed to afford an in-district address on a paralegal’s salary, something Sam was infinitely suspicious of but he didn’t question. She lived only a block from Sioux’s junction.

“I’ll see you at court, Boss,” she said in parting, shooting fingers guns at him as she turned to head in the opposite direction. Sam waved and made his gradual way towards the Light Rail station, mindful of the thud-thud of electrical impulses in the base of his spine. 

He was just passing one of the small gaps between buildings when he felt strong hands wrap into the sleeve of his suit and jerk him into the alley. It was a much smaller person, he could immediately tell, and normally Sam probably would’ve been able to maintain balance but with his tech in such a state he stumbled over. Whoever had grabbed him, slammed him hard into the metal of the resident coffee stop’s building.

The hardware hit into the wall and dug deep into this spine, making his entire body shudder. He shoved at the hands on him, and flinched when he felt one ghost along the button of his slacks. “What the hell?” he grunted, grabbing the skinny wrist of the offender and pushing back. A very familiar face greeted him, full lips curling into a smirk and dark mane of black hair tickling his hand. “Ruby?”

RUBY was a sexbot line, the one standing in front of him was of the 2.0 variety. He had only seen the likes of her in advertisements and all over Crowley Corps’ website in the midst of his research against the company. What the hell. She licked her lips, making them shine, and looked up at him through her lashes. “Hi, Sam.” She struggled against his hold on her wrist and he let her go on the principle that she was nearly half his side and an android nonetheless. They didn’t act on their own. (Unless of course their name was Cas.)

“What’re you here for? A deal?” Sam prompted, his left leg going in and out with the pressure on the tech at his back. He was actually grateful she’d slammed him up against the wall, at least he could keep standing like this. Ruby tilted her head, pulled her lip in between her teeth. Red blush painted her cheeks a sultry color and Sam wondered how they’d managed to create that effect in a robot.

“I’m here for you, Sam,” she whispered, pushing her lips against the hollow of Sam’s throat and sucking gently. Her body molded to his and Sam wondered at exactly what point was it appropriate to inform her that he was as ace as they came. It wasn’t really something he advertised, so it didn’t shock him that Crowley seemed to be under the impression that he was seduceable. In a world where even machines had sex drives (literally), it wasn’t really priority to point out that Sam just didn’t really see the appeal in it.

Ruby’s hand trailed down the front of his buttoned shirt, brushing against his lower stomach. It tickled, Sam would admit, and his abdomen quivered. The android must have taken that to mean he was reacting in a positive way because she suddenly shoved her hands down his pants and wow, okay it had officially gone too far. Sam forcefully shoved her backwards, taking pleasure in the little stumble she did.

“Okay, if they teach you that assault is totally fine at CC, no wonder you’re all getting sued,” he muttered, adjusting his blazer and shooting a steely glare at the bot. She narrowed her eyes at him, a sneer on her pretty face.

“No need to play hard to get, Sammy, I’m all yours. All you have to do is drop your client,” she murmured, practically purred, despite the disgusted expression on her face. Sam kind of wanted to laugh but the way his leg was going black every few seconds was worrisome enough to keep his face schooled.

“No thanks. Tell Crowley Corp to brush up on their research a bit next time, you would have had a better chance trying seduce my paralegal,” Sam informed, subtly pushing at the wall to try and take the pressure off of his hardware and adjust the distribution of his weight. Ruby didn’t budge and Sam sighed. “Seriously, I’m good. Asexual here, you’re not really my thing. But, uh, here take this.” He plucked one of his cards from his side pocket. “I can keep you from getting sentenced to a tear down when this suit goes sideways.”

She blinked up at him with wide doe eyes and hesitantly took the tiny strip of tech-glass, his info flashing across in bright letters. “Uh. Thanks, I think,” she said staring at it curiously. “Um, sorry for attacking you I guess.” Her flippant apology was the last thing she threw over her shoulder as she vacated the alley. Sam exhaled, throwing his head back against the wall and staring up at the gradually darkening sky.

His life was never uneventful at least, he mused, trying to shove off the wall. His left leg was still completely gone and he pushed at it a few times hoping that’d be enough to jog it back to life for the time it would take to get to the Light Rail. A few moments passed as he massaged at his leg desperately hoping today wasn’t the day he had to break down and call Dean for help. Let alone in front of Cas who still didn’t know the extent of his tech’s issues.

Abruptly, he felt the sudden twitch of his left foot as the burnt bridge chip managed to force the electrical impulses through. He breathed a sigh heavy with relief and pushed off the wall. However just as he put his weight to the left leg, he lost sensation in his entire lower half, his knees buckling immediately. He braced himself for the collision with the hard concrete, arms flying up to protect his face. The impact knocked the air from his lungs and he lay there, momentarily stunned.

~

Cas perched on one of Dean’s work stools in a pair of said man’s sweatpants. Unfortunately, Sam’s had been too long and wearing clothing was etiquette that even AIs must follow. He was sitting stock still as was one of the benefits of a more machine than human body. Staying still was a very simple feat. Dean was using the remnants of his artificial skin grafts to close up the hole Cas had made in his shoulder.

He didn’t understand why Dean bothered, it wasn’t like there was gore beneath the polymer to make others uncomfortable. He’d faintly heard him mention something about Sam being mad with Dean and he was the computer equivalent of pleased to hear that his proprietor might feel something on his behalf. He liked Sam.

When he first ran his initial start up, he recalled the uncomfortable sensation of touch. The way that Cas felt in the human parts of his body was very different from the replicant impulses that mimicked what he should be feeling in his machinery. The very real flesh and blood of his chest processed things differently than the 0s and 1s Cas was accustomed to. Like bursts of undocumentable awareness, sudden perception of something against his body, a pleasant warmth. Things Cas was never written to understand.

He came online with the feeling of Sam’s own body heat across his chest and his eyes regarding him with concerned curiosity. Cas had felt the strange bloom of warmth at the sight of Sam, but it was unrelated to the sense of touch, an independent sensation in the depths of his chest. Cas like the feeling. He couldn’t process it for the life of him and any searches along the network came up fruitless. After a week of residing in the home with Sam and Dean, Cas decided it wasn’t important to find an explanation. Just that he keep experiencing it.

“You just moved, I saw it,” Dean said into the quiet, shoving at Cas’s shoulder. Cas squinted up at him, sure that he hadn’t so much as shifted an inch.

“I didn’t,” he assured, pulling his attentions back into the current rather than dwelling on the few nice things that came with a cyborg body instead of the android he’d been written for. He didn’t like to think about all the annoying extraneous maintenance that came along with a living, animate being. It was a hassle considering he automatically ran background maintenance on all of the machinery attached to his torso. He was not made for remembering daily tasks the way humans did.

It was tiring.

“Think you’d be better at holding still considering you’re a computer program, but here we are.” Dean was mostly talking to himself at this point, Cas had decided, as the mechanic focused on applying the graft paste to quicken the melding process.

Cas decided to busy himself by sifting along his network. What Dean didn’t know, was that removing the workshop’s former AI allowed it’s RAM to be accessible before wiping. Cas had smartly loaded all of the footage and audio onto his back up remote storage for later viewing. He wanted to gather as much knowledge as he could on the hosts of his home. Namely Sam, but Dean was alright too. Occasionally, he made that feeling spread across Cas’s chest. Not as often as Sam, but sometimes.

It made his ingratiating habit of calling Cas an ‘it’ and generally insulting him a little more tolerable. Slightly anyway.

He lifted the parallel network of Sam’s personal cell, the one he’d forcibly pried GADreel out of to insert his own network stream. Like he had said to Dean, it was safer to have all of their information in one network rather than broadcasting across multiple lines where anyone could stumble across it. He also just didn’t like the idea of other AI’s bumbling around in it, but he’d keep that bit to himself.

The satellite tracking in the cell showed it in a narrow area between two buildings. According to the timestamp it had been there for at least ten minutes. Cas furrowed his brow, noted that the cell’s business card count was minus one, and that the weak network Sam’s equipment emitted was completely undetectable.

Cas shot up onto his feet. The movement had Dean smacking himself in the cheek with the paste cup and he sputtered, wiping roughly at his face. “What the hell, Cas?” he growled, tossing the container onto the worktop, looking like he wanted to throw his fist.

“Sam’s technology has gone out. He’s in a chasm between,” he skimmed the network, “a coffee rest and a yoga studio.” He was already mapping out the fastest route when Dean threw on his coat and headed for the doors. Cas rushed to follow, something strange and similarly undefinable eating at his insides.

The Light Rail had them there in under two minutes, Dean practically running down the stairs to the ground and rushing in the direction Cas had indicated. He hurried to keep up with Dean, feeling sweat for the first time beading at his hairline and being too distracted by whatever wwas in his gut to pay it mind.

They came upon Sam in the mouth of the alleyway, sitting comfortably against the black metal of a building, cup of warm coffee clutched in his hands and woman crouching beside him. She was petting his hair and Cas would categorize the crease in her forehead and downturn of her lips as concern. Dean was breathing hard and he glared down at his brother like he couldn’t decide between showing affection or violence towards him.

Sam’s eyes were huge as he stared at the two of them, open-mouthed. “What? How’d you guys know?”

Dean cocked his head in Cas’s direction. “Your little flunkie hijacked your phone network.” He said this with something akin to satisfaction, adjusting his jacket and crossing his arms. “Who’s this?” Dean seemed to only just have noticed the female beside Sam. Cas thought he might recognize her long white coat as something that those in the medical profession often wore.

“Oh, this is Amelia. Amelia, this is my brother Dean and my, um, Cas.”

It was only when Ms Amelia was eyeing him curiously that Cas realized he had not put on upper body clothing and that was not normal for humans in public. He supposed with his techlines it was fairly obvious that he was an android. But he did prefer just being Sam’s Cas. He would tell his proprietor later of his preference. He wasn’t quite an android or a cyborg. Just Cas was nice.

“Nice to meet you,” Amelia waved, accompanied by a smile that showed all her teeth. “I found your brother here on the ground and my first instinct was ‘this man is dire need of some coffee.’ I’m glad you showed up though. I’ll pass my caretaker duties onto you two capable looking gentlemen.” She rose from her crouch, dusting off the ends of her coat.

“Thank you so much, Amelia, really,” Sam said and even Cas could sense the earnestness that laced every word.

“Thanks,” Dean grunted, nodding in that curt way he did with Cas. Cas was beginning to recognize it as the ‘unwillingness to express affection openly’ gesture. He thought he was really getting the hang of these human mannerisms.

Amelia smiled a smaller smile. “Anyone would’ve done it. You’re welcome though,” she said, pulling her bag up her shoulder and turning to leave. “Maybe I’ll see you boys around.” And she was gone in the masses of people going from one place to the next.

Sam set his coffee on the ground and sighed. “I got pushed into the wall and it must’ve totally screwed up what was left of that chip. I’m sorry guys,” he said sincerely, and his eyes were shiny with water, brows coming together. Dean had once described this expression as his puppy-dog face. Cas did see the correlation.

Dean waved him off and turned to Cas with raised eyebrows. “Wanna rock-paper-scissors for who gets to carry gigantor home?”

Stony faced, Cas said, “that won’t be necessary. I will.” Dean regarded him, in his shorter stature and half-naked state, Cas could only assume.

“What’s makin’ you so eager?” he asked and Sam huffed some kind of laugh through his nose. Cas didn’t know what that meant so he simply held out his bare arms, their black techlines gleaming in the setting sun.

“I’m strongest. My bones are essentially malleable steel.”

The corners of Dean’s mouth lowered. “Well ya got me there. But at least take my jacket, I’m not gonna be spotted walking around with my immobile brother and a shirtless sextoy-lookin’ android carrying him around on his back. It’s just too much for me, you understand.”

Cas took the article of clothing and slid into it easily before stepping over to Sam. It took some maneuvering and a hand from Dean to pull Sam’s large frame onto his back, Cas’s hands supporting his bottom and Sam’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. Cas preened, feeling particularly useful to his proprietor. The warmth spread in his human chest again and he didn’t even mind the judgemental stare he was getting from Dean.

Sam was weightless with the strength of Cas’s artificial limbs and walking was just as if he were carrying no one on his back. Dean paced beside them, making sure passersby steered clear of his brother in general, like a protective canine.

“I’m surprised your feet aren’t dragging on the ground,” Dean was saying as they walked the short distance to the Light Rail station.

“I’m surprised you’re not more worried about my tech. It’s refreshing,” Sam said, arms a comfortable pressure on Cas’s collarbones and subsequent laugh right at his ear. Cas fought the weird smile thing his face tried to do.

“About that, Cas is donating an extra microchip to your cause. Congratulations.”

Sam’s face was suddenly very close to Cas’s and his smile, just in Cas’s, peripheral was vibrant. The warmth overtook every possible corner of his human body, filling his head with a pleasant hum. “Thank you, Cas,” Sam said quietly, in (what Cas took to be) an even more earnest tone than he’d used with Amelia.

He heard Sam sniff suddenly, a nose at the collar of Dean’s jacket, as they neared the elevator for the station. “Cas?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Why do you smell like skin grafting paste?”

Dean probably sensed the accusing stare being shot in his direction.

“Okay, first of all I did not do it. This hardcore motherfucker thinks he’s Rambo or something.”


End file.
